alright its been a while but let me catch you up on what i've been doing. The group and I left for the Philippines. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 10:15 but we were delayed till 12:15. This actually worked out well because the airline gave us a meal pass that we could use pretty much anywhere. So i spent it on some pizza. The airport was so massive that we spent the rest of the time looking around and exploring until our flight was delayed again. Even though we were kind of up set it wasnt to bad since we were going to sleep in the airport once we got to the Philippines anyway. Finally our flight took off and we made it to Manila where we just stayed up the whole night (just me, i was reading and watching everyones stuff as they all slept) and then got on our next flight to Kalibo. Once there we took a one and a half hour drive to Caticlan where we got on a boat to take us to Boracy. If you think that was an adventure, once we landed we had to take a tricycle. Yes a tricycle, which basically consisted of a small motor bike with a box cart attached to it, to get to out hostel. It was pretty interesting and we received even more interesting stares when we fit 6 people onto one (as seen here).

Once we finally got to our hostel everyone was happy to put their stuff away and relax for a little bit. The hostel was like a small village comprised for multiple huts. As far as the price goes it wasnt to bad. It was a bamboo room with 4 beds (6 people, the girls had rented a room at a different hostel) and the bathroom comprised of a sink with water that smell like crap, a toilet what the seat was kind of loose and a shower head right next to the toilet, with a drain in the middle of the floor. Even worse there was only cold water so that didnt make showering fun. but since we were only going to be there to sleep and change it didn't really matter. It also seemed like the ones who owned it lived there as well as their cousins or something of the sort. Every morning they would all be outside eating a mixture of different things for breakfast (a family feast). We were about a 2 min walk from the beach so after about an hour power nap we all got up and went out to explore in the 85 degree weather.

The next day we meet up with the girls and had breakfast and laid out on the beach most of the day. Tanning, making sand castles ( I made an alligator) and throwing the Frisbee around. Most of use got sun burnt this day. Clement got burnt the worse, he was only out for about an hour and he looked like a french cherry. He was soooo red. but that didn't stop clement from doing anything. That night we went out and found a nice place to eat right on the beach. While we eat there was live concerts going on (local singers and stuff) so the entertainment was a good addition to the amazing and cheap seafood we had. There was fire dancing later that night which was incredible too.

The next day was another beach day, relaxed, explored more of the island, went to a few bars. That night we to another awesome restaurant and later went to a bar on the other side of the island called the Jungle

The next day, we did some more exploring, some went snorkeling while some of us took ATV's to the top of a mountain to see a birds eye view of the islands. In all we had alot of fun on the beach and had some amazing seafood, but i was starting to miss Hong Kong. I was going to feel good to take a real shower.

Our last day in the Philippines we stayed a night in Manila in a nice hotel close to the airport. We explored the city a little and went to one of the malls (which was very big and had a lot of nice shops) but me and clement had no desire to explore a mall so we left and went into a taxi that took us to the financial district. Everyone said that manila was nasty place thats very dangerous, but where clement and i went to was far from that stereotype. It was beautiful, with very nice buildings and a huge park in the middle that everyone was running around and doing stretches in.

Now that i am back in Hong Kong and survived the Philippines, im just going to my classes and relaxing. Still exploring the city and going to some new areas. I will keep you all posted with whats going on. We have some big trips coming up later such as the great wall and the forbidden city but until then, its going to be class and going out occasionally on the weekends. until i post again, take care and i'll talk to you all soon

Saturday, February 12, 2011

so i lost the password to my blog and since everytime i tried to long in it was in chinese, it didnt help me very much to figure out how to solve the problem. Until i figure it out i will be writing in Microsoft Word to remember what i did.

Anyways to go back about a week and talk about what all we did may be a little difficult but i will do my best. For the most part not to much went on. Now that school is up and running and all classes are final (no more add/drop) we have for the most part slowed down some. We still go out to different restaurants most nights and go to the bars here and there. We went back to the horse tracklast week and i didnt gamble since I lost money in Macau. After the race we went to this sushi place called sushi one. it was a very nice restaurant with amazing sushi. We had ordered so much that

the whole table was covered with food and its was all for under $100 HK or like $12 american.

Saturday we went to the Big Buddha, its was pretty amazing even though it was really touristic. took a lot of good pictures. we were going to walk to the Big buddha but the trip would have taken easily 4-5hours or more with non stop walking. You have to go over three mountains to get to it. So we decided to take thecable car there and walk back. After about an 2 hours we decided to get ready to head back, as we were finishing the last of our pictures a small group of us (me, greg, clay, and alyssa) decided we were going to take a bus back since it was so cheap.

On monday the group of us went to the flower market to do a project for our entreprenuership class. There was a lot of kids and games for the whole family. It was kind of interesting and many of the flowers were nice but they were, for the most part, all the same. they had around 10 different kinds but with all the venders selling the same thing it got kind of boring fast. we interviewed a few of the shop keepers for our project but we always had to talk with the younger people bc none of the parents or older generation speaks english. We were having conversations with 8-10 year olds while there parents didnt understand a word, so it was a little strange.

for not posting in such a long time im sorry for not having more detailed things up but its hard to always remember an entire day for a whole week.

next stop is the Phillippines and i leave tomorrow night.for Boracay, the famous White Beach. Should be amazing, and i should have a lot to talk about.